


Not Taken but Not Present

by Theflyinghamster



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Fae & Fairies, Kelpies, POV Second Person, Selkies, Sirens, Vaguely Gay, but gay enough, elsewhere university - Freeform, oh my
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theflyinghamster/pseuds/Theflyinghamster
Summary: Quicksilver will remain at Elsewhere.This is how she got there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've written a couple things for EU bc i Want To Go There but i just submitted them to the tumblr.   
> This is not tumblr.  
> Enjoy.

Your mother had always called you a fae child. 

Of course, she never meant that you were a changeling, simply that you lived with an off-beat tempo that only you could hear. Specifically, you liked to live a slow, unchanging life of routine. This was not a boring life, you lived for theatre, storytelling and archaeology. All things which were in the past and the only changes were new discoveries, the unveiling of the old into the modern world.  
Your friends in high school had never quite understood your love of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek theatre, nor your enthusiasm for the latest piece of the puzzle in the map of human evolution. They smiled, laughed and spoke of your slightly archaic vernacular, and love of vintage fashion before turning the conversation to a new episode of a show you couldn’t really get into. You still listened attentively because you loved your friends and how they loved their own passions though, you never believed that you were ‘superior’ because of your interests. Just a bit weird. 

You sporadically keep up with your group chat because you still love your friends and the familiarity of interacting with them. It was especially comforting as you still haven’t quite found a set routine in Elsewhere yet. 

It had been the biggest change you could have imagined; moving from the same house you had lived in for 11 years with your parents to a doom room on campus with a girl who called herself Brimstone. You had somehow ended up with a chemistry major as a roommate who really liked phosphorus and managed to, independently, named yourself Quicksilver. Phosphorus and Mercury, a duo which had quickly cemented itself as the most entertaining disaster ever.   
You decided to double major in theatre and literature but always sat in on archaeology and history lectures. As the amount of time you spent at elsewhere increased so would the range of subjects you’d go to lectures for, to the point where if you felt like it you’d just show up to a lecture and take notes. 

(You left if it was math though, never made sense to you.)

Brimstone was somehow the one who got Taken. Everyone had said it’d be you, the incautious theatre kid who danced a carole with the gentry. No, Brimstone had slipped up and forgotten where she was and been Taken as a result.

You would get her back.

(It is worth noting that much of your childhood was spent kicking much larger kids in the shin as they pulled your hair. You had no fear of these willow-boned tylwyth teg.)

You noticed a few of them give you a wide berth as they avoided you in the courtyard. Good. You gripped Brimstone’s hand and smiled the smile of a beast at them. 

And maybe your eyes were more purple then blue now but, well, you had to get to her somehow.

Any of your friends would attest to your vicious loyalty.

You spent a lot of time at the pool, you were a cancer and believed in the superstition that stated your connection to water. You were not a strong swimmer but found you were more comfortable floating in the pool than just lounging on the edge. Kelpies could sense something feral about you and you sang with the sirens, providing a rare contralto. You once kissed a selkie under the water and she smiled knowing it was just a bit of fun. You had a lot of fun at the pool. You would come every Wednesday from 11am to 1pm and laugh with them when a freshie got on the back of a Kelpie. 

You noticed a small patch of skin turned to scales on your thigh and smiled at the iridescent glimmer. 

On Mondays 8am to 10am you could be found in a dance practice room going through your warmups. Cardio, Stretching, Core, Across the floor. You would then begin on any blocking you had been given by the theatre. You might ask the room for a partner to help you deepen your splits or to work through blocking with. A girl with hair the colour of spun gold and a lithe body would walk through the door and greet you as her ‘silver-souled counterpart’. Her hands were firm when they needed to be and soft if they decided to caress you. You knew that if you asked she’d stop but…if she asked for help you knew she didn’t need you wouldn’t mention that your hands also strayed. 

Brimstone mentioned that your hair had a golden shine to it in the sunlight now.

There was a part of you that knew what was happening. Every day you felt parts of you fall away, like eggshell. You cared less about class, you only spoke to Brimstone, you replaced your iron snakebites when they started burning. 

You knew what you were becoming, but you didn’t care.


	2. Love Burns Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another time the same world.  
> Quicksilver falls once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well.  
> I actually wrote this for an assignment but Quicksilver continues to haunt me.  
> I took a lot more liberty with the use of gaelic folklore.  
> This is not connected to the last story of Quicksilver and Brimstone btw.

There was something rather magical about the forest at 3am. Something about the hazel trees belied a sentience beyond that of wood and leaf. Something whispered in your ear of times long past in tongues unknown. Something in the corner of your eye moved and you knew it only existed in that moment.   
There was something magical about these woods.

Perhaps it was the blood ritual. 

Perhaps it was the chanting.

The robes.

The candles.

The Demon.

The demon steps out of the circle and the wanna-be mages scream as it tears them apart and apart, viscera a sacrament to the trees and shrill swan songs a hymn for the eve.  
You smile at the demon.  
The demon smiles back.

“Be welcome, my love.” 

It had started, as many things do, with your dearest roommate daring you to do something stupid.   
“Truly, you have no appreciation for the forbidden arts, Quicksilver dearest.” Brimstone’s voice was molten with enjoyment. She knew you had no love of the forbidden arts.  
“The guild forbade them for a reason. The reason being that they always end ‘and they were never seen again’.”   
“Ugh seriously Silvy. No one even listens to the guild after their first year. We’re big kids who can do human sacrifice if we want to.” You sneered at her petulant tone.  
“Do you even listen to the stuff you say Brim? Wait. No. No you don’t, because if you did you’d know that you don’t fuck with the Fair Folk!”   
“I’ll buy lunch for a month if you do.” Oh shit. That’s seriously tempting considering you’re an arts student.  
“…Two.”  
“YES.”

It was a beautiful creature. You knew it would be. It was a leannán sí, after all.   
“I am called by the one who hold my title but not name.” A voice of pure silk, light and sing-song but a ringing a metallic tinge.  
“I am they.” Your voice rings flat and low in comparison, earthy and human.   
“How am I to address them?” Hunger in her eyes. You see she hope that you are a fool and does not know the ways.  
“By a false name. Quicksilver.” You know the ways.  
“Well met, Quicksilver. Please, call me Breena.” 

And so, it began. 

There were signs of an interference of a non-mortal sort. Your voice carries itself to the back of the theatre with ease, your stance relaxes, and you remember blocking flawlessly. Subtle but they happen to quickly to be natural progression.   
Your peers begin to wonder as you get more important parts. More speaking. More stage time. More influence. 

They wonder if this was what your soul was worth. 

Breena is both fire and ice. She ignites you but stays cool. Her appearance cannot be explained. She is unearthly and unsettling but beautiful and haunting.  
It is you she haunts. 

The play is where everything changes.  
Shakespearean tongue and iambic pentameter flow freely and you are Helena. Brimstone is Hermia, you suppose it is to challenge the two of you by giving roles that oppose your natural ones.  
Midsummer night dreams fill your mind in both slumber and the waking world.  
The madness of your introductory speech comes easily. 

Too easily.

Your hair thins, you bones become more prominent, your eyes gain a shine that sends children running.  
Helena becomes you.  
You become Quicksilver in soul.

“Silvy this isn’t funny anymore. You need to pass it along.” Brimstone’s voice is distant, pleading but cannot pierce the film over your mind.  
“I am better for it. For her. She makes me better.” Your voice now rings metallic.   
“She’s killing you!”  
“I love her.”  
Brimstone is quelled. Her face becomes pale.   
“Y-your true name is Quicksilver now isn’t it? It is! She holds your true name!”  
“Yes.”  
Brimstone runs.

Brimstone returns.  
“I found a fool. Well one other than you, they’re gonna take your demon.” Her voice is flat now, but the words ignite your fury.  
“SHE IS MINE AND I AM HERS. YOU SHALL NOT TEAR US ASUNDER.” Breena is here. She’s here and she loves you, right? That’s why she’s defending you, right? That’s why she’s yelling at Brimstone.  
“BEGONE LEECH OF LIFE!” Why is Brimstone yelling? Why is she throwing things at your love? Why are they burning her?   
Iron and salt.  
She is killing your love.  
Breena turns to you. “I cannot perish as ye mortals think. We return to ground, summon me back to this place in a year and a day. I shall return”  
Silence, salt and iron chips rain.

Brimstone convinces you to get a tattoo. It is black, red and brown. The internet would tell you these inks carry iron.  
Brimstone gives you hairspray and removes the labels. It smells of the sea.   
Brimstone convinces you to move with her to a new dorm by a running river.  
You wait.

There is no more magic in you.   
There is nothing that makes you better.  
You recede into the wings; the stage is for the talented.  
You wait.

You speak to the children of the forbidden arts.  
They say, ‘yes we can do this ritual’ and you grin.  
You cannot cast with iron on your skin.  
You wait.

Brimstone looks over to you.  
“You are a fool. This fa-this demon has tainted your mind. That’s it, I’m taking you to student services, perhaps a knight may be able to cleanse your soul.”  
She seems so small. So fragile a being.   
“Thy human efforts shall by my love be undone. We shan’t be torn asunder by mere knights of thy human guild.” The words flow out of your mouth, as if you had not spoken them yourself.   
“We’ll see.”

“She’s half way to Faerie, Brimstone. It cannot be done.” Voices float back into focus and speak a truth you know yet Brimstone cannot accept.  
“So, what the fuck am I meant to do? Just let this-this thing take my roommate and play nice with the changeling it leaves behind?’ Clanging metal and cymbals, she is so angry.   
“You knew this was a risk when you came to this place, so did she.” Ice, ice, ice. He has said this word every time a student sells themselves to the fae. “She’ll be happier there, as she is now.”  
“…Fine. I’ll let her be taken.”

And you are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this reads ok! Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> I love these girls.   
> Quicksilver may not be finished with me though.


End file.
